Wagstaff's repeated pleadings with "high authority" at last began to bear fruit. It was a generally accepted military axiom out in Mesopotamia and Persia that, if you were insistent enough in your demands for an extra platoon or two, with a gun or an aeroplane thrown in, you were either given the goods, or dubbed a "flannel-footed fool" and relegated to the cold shades of official oblivion. It was generally the latter. When Wagstaff, therefore, heard that he had been given a whole squadron of 14th Hussars, a platoon of the 14th Hants, and a platoon of Ghurkas, as well as a section of a howitzer battery and a couple of mountain guns, his habitual soldierly calm deserted him, and he almost wept for joy on the neck of his adjutant, debonair "Bobby" Roberts of the 4th Devons. "C" squadron of the 14th Hussars had made a {170} forced march from Kasvin. Its ranks had been thinned by fever, and it barely mustered eighty sabres when it rode over the Kuflan Kuh Pass to Mianeh. It had but two officers, Lieutenants Jones and Sweeney, fit for service. But there was no respite. Fever-racked troopers and leg-weary horses, after a night's halt at Mianeh, started on a fifty-mile march to Tikmadash, where a handful of British were holding up a Turkish force already numbering nearly a thousand and growing daily. The tired infantry who had "legged it" all the way from Kasvin were also pushed north in the wake of the cavalry. {171} CHAPTER XVI THE FIGHT AT TIKMADASH Treachery of our irregulars--Turkish machine-gun in the village--Headquarters under fire--Native levies break and bolt--British force withdrawn--Turks proclaim a Holy War--Cochrane's demonstration--In search of the missing force--Natives mutiny--A quick cure for "cholera"--A Turkish patrol captured--Meeting with Cochrane--A forced retreat--Our natives desert--A difficult night march--Arrival at Turkmanchai--Turks encircling us--A fresh retirement. The Turks came against Osborne at Tikmadash on September 5th. For days previously they had been carefully preparing for the attack.